Not paying attention

May 12, 2013

To the Editor:

We started hating the GOP when we realized that Reaganomics equaled a war on the lower middle class (LMC). Before Reagan, the vast majority of Americans were LMC workers on farms, factories, mines or vehicle drivers, teachers, nurses’ aides and orderlies, etc. Yet most of them raised families and even helped the smarter kids through college on one to one-and-a-half incomes. Each generation lived better than the last, even without changing jobs, etc. CEOs made several times what their LMC workers did.

Since Reagan, the GOP has fought to defeat unions; lowered taxes on the upper classes; supported almost all mergers, creating lots of “too-big-to-fail” companies; privatized everything in sight to the advantage of the rich over the LMC.

The oil companies, banks, etc., that Teddy Roosevelt broke up now are many times larger than ever. They have privatized the profits but socialized the losses as they bail out the screw-ups of these mega-companies.

Today, the LMC need two or more incomes to just keep up with their parents’ lifestyles. The CEOs make thousands of times what the LMC workers do, and the GOP works hard with Grover Norquist’s and Paul Ryan’s plans to reduce benefits for the poor and further lower taxes on the rich.

And we know, if you subtract the vote of the religious right, racists and the duped, the GOP would lose most elections. Those who are not rich and don’t hate the GOP are just not paying attention.